FS2004 about to be deleted from my computer!!

[Guest Lobaeux4]

Okay, I'm getting a little frustrated. I'm having a problem with my winXP virtual memory settings. Running FS2K4, mid level settings on all sliders, except AI traffic at 90%. Running 1024x768x32, and I keep getting that damned virtual memory warning, after a little while of it, the sim finally just shuts down with an error message. What's the problem here. My virtual memory settings are set to system managed size, I've got plenty of space for it, I just don't know what to do now. System specs:AMD 2600 @ 2.16ghz512 MB 3200 RAMATI Radeon 9800 Pro60 GB 7200 HDWinXP Pronothing else running, I'm even getting decent performance until I get the dreaded virtual memory message!!Really bugging me, I haven't been able to finish my last four flights now because of this.

[Guest PaulL01]

Did you do a complete install of FS9?If not you may want to try that. You could try changing you VM settings and create a perm Swap, something like: 800mb min and 800mb max., before you do you may want to temporarily disable VM, reboot, defrag, reboot and then enable your VM settings.HOpe you get it working.

[Guest]

Unfortunately I will delete FS2004 from my PC, too (a lot of money wasted, again). I have tried everything I could think of: different drivers, disabling sound acceleration completely, reducing FS2004-settings to a level where it looked like FS 4 (!), disabling the joystick - but nothing worked! I get good frame-rates when flying - and FS2004 freezes almost completely as soon as I land and touch down (1 frame/Minute!)! Nothing seems to improve things! There must be a huge bug somewhere in FS2004 I find no other explanation (Pentium 4, 2,0 GHZ, 768MB DDR-RAM).I can fly for an hour and have no problems (and frame-rates of 20fps) but as soon as I touch down its over - FS2004 freezes :-(((

[Guest emergency_pants]

That sounds a bit like a sound card issue.Does it happen when you touchdown onto water and grass too? Or just tarmac? Does it happen when touching down in a helicopter?As last measures, I suggest temporarily removing your soundcard (either physically or disabling it in your hardware devices window) and see whether it still crashes. At least, then you can rule it out. And do you have a secondary graphics card you can test with? maybe onboard? Which gets me thinking maybe you have some onboard devices which need disabling and might be conflicting with an AGP or PCI graphics/sound card.When I get odd behaviour in programmes, I usually start with the hardware drivers (as you have done) and then if that doesn't make a difference, I remove everything non-essential from my system (sticks, soundcards, disable onboard stuff, disc drives, USB devices, memory and leave myself with absolute barebones system.) If things work, then add one thing at a time, fire up and see what causes the lockup. Using this method will enable you to see where the lockup is coming from).it may even be a memory stick error. Do you have two that you can switch around? Put one in at a time and see if the lockup/crash still happens?It's definitely a system issue somewhere, I guess it's just a matter of narrowing it down. IDing whether it is a graphics issue, sound issue, effects issue, memory issue, whatever. Have you checked DirectX? Got all of the latest Windows Updates? Windows system totally up to date?Set Virtual memory to auto?Just switching stuff on and off from within FS9 might not make much difference. You might need to change things in Windows to identify issues. For example, setting sound to volume zero might not ID a sound issue because the sound command might still be sent to Windows... know what I mean?I hope you get it sorted. It's a real downer and I know how frustrating and disappointing it is.Maybe something there helps, good luck with it.Simon.

[Guest emergency_pants]

Hang on... maybe your landing problem has something linked with this:HERE

[Guest UweR]

Hi, there are two things to try...- if you have a onboard soundcard, use it instead of the PCI cardMy combination SBLive! and Asus A7V8X nForce2 didn

[Guest UweR]

Hi, does the system crash as well when the CPU isn

[Guest oyvindhansen]

>Hi, there are two things to try...>>- if you have a onboard soundcard, use it instead of the PCI>card>Or you could disable onboard sound in the Bios and remove its drivers... The newer cards like SB Audigy are better than even the nForce2 onboard sound. Don't know about the SB Live though...- Oyvind

[Guest]

Many thanks for taking the time to give me all this information :-)I will do a few last experiments before I delete FS2004 from my harddisk permanently.Yes, it does also happen when landing on a grass strip - I didn

[Guest]

OK - thanks I will try this, too! However I wonder what might be SOOO different in FS2004 (compared to FS2002) because I NEVER had any problems with FS2002 :-(

[John_Cillis 2,406]

This probably isn't the answer you want to hear, but one of our programmers recently had the same issue under Windows 2000--just came out of the blue, and only surfaced with one application--the financial app we develop in our shop. I tried all sorts of fixes--I disabled non-essential services one by one, I killed off all the processes, ran the service pack updates. No go. And I went through umpteen different variations of VM management. I did find his system had been hit with a lot of spyware--he was an avid web surfer. It's possible that there's some spyware out there that may be overwriting some core XP and Win 2000 components.In the end, I had to reimage his system. At least we have a standard system image that we can use. Short of that, it sounds likely that a reformat may be the only thing that would help in your case. Before you consider FS2004 "not worth it", sooner or later, some other app may surface the issue again.-John

[Vulcan 14]

John,>It's possible that there's some spyware out there that may be overwriting some core XP and Win 2000 components.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Adaware can remove spyware, but if anything has overwritten core components, the answer would be no. And I suspect there may be many unidentified trojans and spyware which may be doing that to Windows, given some of the holes in Windows' security like the recent one that has caused so much havoc. -John

[Guest]

OK, Simon and Uwe, test-flights are over for now. You *seem* to have solved my problem. I will have to do a few more test-flights tomorrow just to be 100% sure but having just finished *4* flights in a row WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS seems to indicate that I (you!) have identified the culprit! Disabling the sound-card completely within Windows has done the trick (disabling sound acceleration obviously was NOT enough). My four test-flights were all very smooth, the three flights with the "standard clouds" more or less showed framerates of 20 fps constantly (locked at 20 fps) from take-off, cruise until landing (yes, even touch-down)! The last flight, where I adjusted the display settings to default again (which means detailed clouds 30%) had frame-rates of 16-20 fps (and no difference on touch down).This also shows where the difference between FS2002 and FS2004 lies: DirectX 8 and DirectX 9!!! Obviously SB Live! has difficulties with DX9! I just found fairly new drivers for the sound-card, too, so I will install them tomorrow...those 4 flights definitely were very quiet :-)Many thanks again, without your help I really would have deleted FS2004 today.

[Guest Daniel Pimentel]

Also, several spyware has been able to surpass AdAware swipes... It is not even detected by the program. DP